Reply to Middle school feeder data for TJ admissions?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]The irony is that there are a good number of kids at TJ who are sweating the college admission process b/c they are not the tippy top of TJ. Even with outstanding SATs, but med. grades, they are told they are unlikely to get into VaTech. Top students at TJ are outright rejected from MIT, Uva. And yet, we know of kids from Edison who get into MIT, Uva, Tech, etc. The kids who are struggling to find a college from TJ would be the top of the top at the lower reputation schools. TJ kids actually presented this picture to the incoming 9th graders telling them that going to TJ would not help them get into a good college (I'm sure 99% of the rising 9th graders dismissed this as not applying to them -- just the others).

I agree that the craziness to get into TJ sounds horrible (as described here). What is it really getting these kids? Seems like a race down a rabbit hole.[/quote]

I don't know. My kid recently graduated from TJ, and everyone he knows is going to a great college, mostly top 20/25 schools. And the ones who are going to a school a little further down the list have full ride tuition, room and board merit scholarships. Everyone we knew had a number of great acceptances. Did they get into every single school they applied to? Some did, but not all. But there are plenty of good colleges, so they all ended up with good choices.

Going to TJ is not a guarantee of getting accepted at any particular college, and going to your base school doesn't mean you can't get into good colleges. College acceptances are not a pure numbers game, they really depend on the individual. Kids should go to TJ because they want the high school experience they will get there, not as a means to the end of a top college acceptance.

College admission officials know about TJ and they know what grades at TJ mean. They also know that there is no ranking at TJ and that kids with lower grades are asked to leave the school, so even if there were a ranking, it would be not have the meaning and usefulness that a ranking at a regular school would. An admissions official at a college applicant briefing said that a lot of schools use a proxy for class rank when dealing with selective schools like TJ. So they look at grades and standardized test scores and assign a rank that takes into account the selectivity of the high school. They understand that any kid at TJ would be top 10-20% at their regular high school and they take that into account in the decision making process.

And when it comes down to it, top college admissions look at a lot more than just grades and test scores. So no matter where a kid goes to high school, the kid has to have more to offer a college than only academics. 
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